


All in a Dad's Work

by startrekkingaroundasgard



Series: Clint Barton Bingo [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Comfort, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Fluff, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hugs, Kid Bruce Banner, Kid Bucky Barnes, Kid Fic, Kid James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Kid Natasha Romanov, Kid Sam Wilson, Kid Steve Rogers, Kid Tony Stark, Kid Wanda Maximoff, Nightmares, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-06 20:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20297572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekkingaroundasgard/pseuds/startrekkingaroundasgard
Summary: Clint wakes up and finds that a failed experiment had turned the entire team into children. Or Clint is actually a responsible(ish) parent and checks up on his ridiculous family.





	1. Chapter 1

Clint was a heavy sleeper. Once his head hit the pillow, there was nothing in the world save for perhaps a nuclear blast that could rouse him from sleep. He didn’t dream; the pills which helped him rest were designed to simply knock him out and prevent the nightmares from keeping him awake all night. It meant he often missed a lot but sleep, rare as it was, was far more important. 

Most of the team were on medication of some kind to help them sleep but Clint was one of the few who took them regularly. He wasn’t great at self care however the tablets tasted like coffee and satisfied his evening caffeine urges without leaving him jumping off the walls until the early hours of the morning. 

Like every other day, Clint woke up feeling groggy as the sedative wore off and his mind slowly began to clear. He knew it would take a few hours and at least 3 pots of coffee before he was truly ready to deal with anyone else in the Compound but the clock on the bedside table warned that he was already late for a meeting and needed to get up now, regardless of how awful he felt. 

Stumbling out of bed, Clint quickly sniffed his armpits and decided he could probably forgo the shower this morning. He pulled a wrinkled t-shirt over his head, barely aware in his sleepy state that the sleeve seam had split. Clint downed the lukewarm remains of yesterday evening’s coffee then shuffled out the door, the cuffs of his sweatpants dragging on the carpet as he ambled down to the lab. 

The walk to the lab was quieter than usual, so much so that Clint actually double checked that he had put his hearing aids in. By the time he reached the lab door, despite his sleepy state, he knew something was wrong. Even his reflection in the glass door looked weird - he couldn’t put his finger on what, exactly, but there was definitely something different about his face.

It only got weirder as he stepped inside. 

There was no sign of the team. Clint had expected to be met by Tony and Bruce, at least, to go over the plans for the next mission and work on his latest trick-shot arrows. Instead, there, on the worktop, were two children surrounded by exposed wires, tech which Clint recognised as parts of the Iron Man and War Machine suits and a large smoking box. 

The boys, who looked about five, and awfully familiar, were drowning in their clothes. Their trousers had been thrown aside and they were scooching around the table in slightly singed t-shirts. It took Clint an embarrassing amount of time to place the chubby baby faces and reconcile them with the adult versions he knew. 

Clint rubbed at his eyes until it hurt and even then the sight before him did not change. Rhodes and Tony were still five years old and the sparking wire board between them was still moments away from shorting out the entire Compound’s systems. Leaping forward before another shock sent Rhodes to hospital, Clint swept the boys into his arms and plucked the soldering iron from baby-Tony’s hand. 

The dark haired child was not happy about losing his tool and immediately began screaming right down Clint’s ear. His high pitched yells bounced around inside Clint’s hearing aid, spitting the inside of his skull and clawing at his brain. “Adults never let me do what I want! It’s not fair! I’m smarter than you! You don’t know the difference between a monkey and a wrench but I do so stop treating me like a baby! Let me work, let me work, let me work! I’m not tired! Let me work!”

“Tony, stop,” Rhodes whispered. What good his under-developed brain believed it would do Clint did not know however by some miracle those two tiny words were enough to save Clint’s eardrum from further damage. A smug smile crossed Rhodes chubby little face and he looked up to Clint, chin held high, and said importantly, “Yeah. I’m the boss.”

“Alright, boss man, wanna to tell me what happened?” Clint asked, tightening his grip around Tony’s waist as the boy attempted to wriggle out of his grip. He glanced to the little genius and asked, “How much coffee have you had?" 

"Three cups,” Tony answered proudly.

Clint groaned. That was just what he needed. Grown up Tony was bad enough after a few cups of coffee. Adding the energy of a hyperactive five year old into the mix was not going to be any sort of improvement. 

Every few seconds he changed direction to keep Tony out of reach of all the science equipment that littered the benches, the child genius’s tiny fingers making grabby actions at everything metallic and shiny. Thankfully, Tony soon got distracted by Clint’s hearing aids. He pulled it out with surprising care and turned it over in his hands, his excited babbling muffled without the small device to clear up the words for Clint to understand. 

Turning his attention back to Rhodes, who was sat far more stiffly, watching his friend with a concern that showed his true age, Clint asked, “What happened, Colonel?”

Following his explanation of events was a little difficult with only one functioning hearing aid, the wandering attention of a five year old’s mind and Tony’s constant interruptions. It actually helped that Rhodes’ vocabulary was limited by his age as it avoided any ridiculous technical explanations which, without his usual morning stimulants, Clint would never have understood anyway. 

The gist was simple enough, though: they’d been messing around with time travel and it had gone wrong. They hadn’t gone through time; time had gone through them instead. The shockwave had rippled through space, weakening as it moved through the building. Clint, with his room on the furthest side of the Compound, had been least affected but the de-aging effect would explain why his face looked different to normal. 

“Where’s Bruce? He was meant to be down here too?" 

Rhodes pointed across the lab to where a messy mop of brown hair had just disappeared beneath a workbench. "Over there.”

“Okay, boss man. I’m gonna go check on Bruce but I need you to do something for me. Can you do that?" 

Rhodes nodded, his back straightening and eyes hardening slightly. Cooper had the same look about him sometimes, when the darkness of the world reared its head and he had to be brave for the sake of his little brother. It took Clint a moment to remember that he wasn’t just a child being brave, that there was probably an adult trapped somewhere inside that tiny mind. However, that didn’t do much to alleviate the tightness in his chest when he thought about his family. 

"I need you to keep Tony out of trouble while I check on Bruce and the others. It won’t be easy but I know you can do this for me. You can play together on the computer but no building things, no hammers or sharp knives and no porn.”

“What’s porn?”

“Nope. I do not need to hear these words coming out a child’s mouth. Forget about it.”

Mercifully, Rhodes let it drop. Once Clint set the two young boys down on the floor with a touch screen taken from a set up he hoped wasn’t too important, he slowly crossed the lab to where Bruce was hiding. Sparing the other two boys a quick glance to check that they were behaving (they were, for now), Clint crouched down and muttered, “You alright there, bud?”

Bruce pulled the oversized jumper over his eyes, his tiny fingers trembling while he fidgeted with the loose threads. He was younger than the others, maybe only three. His pupils were wide, tears threatening to spill down his rosy cheeks as he stared up Clint in fear. In a tiny voice, he answered, “My glasses break.”

“Hey, that’s okay. We can get you new ones.”

“You angry?”

“Of course I’m not… Tony, put that down this instance!” Clint whipped his head around, bright sparks in his periphery alerting him to impending danger for the other kids. He narrowed his eyes at Rhodes who shrugged - the kind that said, it’s not my fault, you’ve met Tony - and took his best friend’s hand and pulled him away from the box of tools. They clambered awkwardly down from the worktop (how they’d gotten up there so fast, Clint did not know) and sat, arms crossed, pouting in front of the screen. 

Beneath the table, a small sob tore Clint’s attention away from the petulant troublemakers. Bruce had curled up beneath the jumper, protecting his face with his tiny arms. Clint’s heart dropped, guilt gnawing at him for scaring the child. He reached out to Bruce and offered him his hand, whispering, “Hey, I’m sorry. I won’t hurt you. Do you want a hug?”

Bruce coughed and wiped the snot from his nose. It was a brief nod, one that Clint would have missed if he wasn’t watching carefully enough. He swooped Bruce up in his arms and gently rubbed his back, swaying side to side. It had always calmed Cooper, Laila and Nate when they were little and he hoped it would have the same effect on his de-aged friend. 

Staring up at the ceiling, never entirely comfortable just talking to an empty room, Clint said, “FRIDAY? You online? You’re not a kid too, are you?”

“All systems functioning properly. What can I do for you, Agent Barton?”

“Can you go through Stark’s files and find an unfinished code?”

“Any in particular?”

Clint had no idea what Tony kept on his private servers but, aware of his friend’s tendencies to create at stranger times of the day, responded, “Something simple from when he was drunk or sleep deprived. Doesn’t really matter what it’s for as long as there’s nothing that will scar the kids as they work on it and fix the holes in the code.”

A few seconds passed as FRIDAY searched the systems. “There are twenty two files which match your criteria, Agent.”

“Great. Load them on the touch screen for me? Thanks, FRIDAY." 

Within seconds of the code loading on the screen, Tony and Rhodes went silent, eyes wide with intrigue as they scanned the code. Clint half expected them to get bored and go back to causing trouble - he certainly hadn’t been able to understand codes like that when he was twenty, let alone five - but the pair jumped to their feet and began pointing out lines they recognised.

Chuckling to himself as Tony slammed his older, drunk self for writing something so poor, Clint turned his attention back to Bruce. The young boy had, thankfully, stopped crying but still had his head buried in Clint’s chest, his small fingers clutching to his shirt hard enough to tear one of the seams. 

Clint stroked the back of Bruce’s head and asked gently, "Are you okay, bud?”

Bruce nodded, relaxing his tight grip on Clint’s shirt slightly. “I’m okay.”

“That’s great, Bruce. Do you want to come with me to check on the others?” Another small nod. “Great. FRIDAY, who’s closest?”

“Agent Romanoff is in her room.”

Against his hip, Clint felt Bruce perk up. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at a love that clearly defied age, he cast a quick glance over to Tony and Rhodes, relieved to see that they were well and truly engaged by the codes FRIDAY was throwing up on the touch screen. Convinced they wouldn’t hurt themselves (after he’d done a quick sweep to remove anything sharp and given FRIDAY orders to keep him updated on their activities), Clint readjusted his hold on Bruce and headed upstairs to find Natasha.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian is from google translate, so it's probably wrong but I tried!

Clint found Natasha handcuffed to her bed. 

It wasn’t unusual to find her this way. A hangover from her time in the Red Room, a habit she hadn’t been able, or willing, to shake. Like he used sleeping pills, she used handcuffs. Especially after a difficult mission, of which there were increasingly more nowadays, they were the only things that made her feel safe enough to rest. It didn’t matter that she was locked up; they focused her mind and kept her from lashing out and hurting others. 

What was unusual was the fact that Natasha had regressed a few decades and was now eight years old. Of course, she looked different (she was a child, after all, drowning in adult sized clothes) but there were plenty of tell-tale signs that it was still her. Her flaming red hair, for one, but also the look in her eyes, the intense determination. The burning strength to carry on, to succeed and to do what was right despite the fear that left her trembling in the dark. 

“приказы?” _Orders?_

“вольно.” _At ease._ “How do you feel?”

Natasha glanced up from the ground and frowned, before her expression quickly dropped and levelled out. If he hadn’t known better, Clint might have turned and fled beneath her scrutinising gaze. “Fine.”

“Do you know what’s happening?" 

"I’ve not been told.”

Clint tried to set Bruce down on a nearby chair but the small boy clung to his side and refused to let go. In other circumstances it might have annoyed Clint, with so much else to do a child on the hip was not going to make it easier, but he was all too aware of what an abused child looked like and had no intentions of pushing Bruce away when he was vulnerable like this. 

Tightening his grip on Bruce, the relieved hum on the child’s lips enough to break his heart, Clint crossed the room and crouched beside Natasha’s bed. He reached below the frame and pulled the key from its storage place, balancing baby-Bruce on his knee as he unclicked the handcuffs. 

“There was an accident in the lab and time went weird. Everyone got younger. It’s gonna be okay, though,” he explained, reaching out to rub the red band on Natasha’s wrist. She flinched away but the harshness in her eyes softened, recognition flaring as she leant back into Clint’s space. 

Bruce stretched out his tiny hand, barely extending out past the sleeve of his shirt, and patted the raw skin. He looked up into Natasha’s green eyes and they softened even further. The change in atmosphere was tangible. No longer was the air thick with mistrust. It was lighter now, a weight lifted from all their shoulders as Natasha settled. 

As Clint rose to stand, to move up on to the bed because apparently this age was before he’d had surgery to fix his poor knees, Bruce twisted in his arm and slipped from his grip. Everything slowed as Clint fumbled to catch the boy but another pair of hands reached out and caught him before Bruce hit the ground. 

“You okay, bud?” Clint asked, cupping the boy’s face in his hands. He wiped away the stray tear that rolled down his cheek, silent and afraid that he would be hurt for showing any emotion. “Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”

Natasha ran her deft fingers through the tangled mop of brown hair and quickly assured Clint that Bruce wasn’t injured. She pressed a light kiss to his temple, the corner of her lips turning upwards as the small boy curled against her. Clint almost felt jealous that Bruce’s allegiances had changed so quickly but knew there was nothing more comforting than the protective strength which Natasha emanated. 

“Will you look after him for me?” Clint asked, a sharp burning pain shooting up his legs as he pushed himself onto the edge of the mattress. Natasha’s soft hand covered his as he gripped the bedspread, grinding his teeth together until he could move again without feeling like his knees were on fire. 

She rested her head on his shoulder, pulling Bruce closer against her chest. “I will keep him safe but who will look after you?”

“No big bad to worry about, only Tony screwing around in the lab. I promise I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna check on the rest of the team to make sure they’re safe before the effects wear off.”

“If they don’t wear off?”

“I get to laugh at you all as you suffer puberty again.” Clint pressed a kiss to the top of Natasha’s head and squeezed her gently, trying hard not to imagine how awful it would be to be stuck as the only adult in the Compound as the rest of the team went through their terrible teens. “If you need me, tell FRIDAY and I’ll be right back, okay?”

To Bruce, he said softly, “You’ll be good for Nat, yeah? She can sing to you, if you like.”

No longer so calm, Natasha pushed away from Clint and almost went so far as to hold Bruce at arm’s length to distance herself from the possibility. However, she quickly changed her mind and enveloped the young boy in a tighter hug as if apologising for ever thinking of pushing him away. The discomfort still clear in her voice, she said to Clint, “No. No, I don’t think…" 

"Please?” Bruce whispered, wide eyes staring up at Natasha with adoration. 

She sighed deeply and narrowed her eyes at Clint in a way that made it clear he would pay for this later. Clint could only hope that when the effects of this wore off that Natasha would forget about it but with his track record that seemed wishful thinking. Still, he didn’t stick around to give her the chance to throw something heavy his way and slipped out, a beautiful, if haunting, melody following him down the hallway as he moved to check on the rest of the team.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint already saw Wanda as a daughter, of sorts. The entire team did owing to her age but Clint took on an active parent role more than the rest. On missions, he kept an eye on her even though she was by far the more powerful and capable. After missions, they often sat together and reassured her in the unhelpful way of his that everything would be okay. She often came back to the farm with him to see Laura and the kids so was practically family, anyway.

Despite all of that, it still caught Clint off guard to find her in the middle of her room, a nine year old girl. The innocence that had been cruelly torn from her heart had returned once again, plastering over the painful cracks in her usual ‘everything is alright’ facade. Wanda looked in body the child Clint sometimes caught himself believing her to be. 

The door shimmered red as it shut behind him and Wanda glanced up at him, eyes wide as if surprised by her powers. Surprisingly, she wasn’t all that keen on testing them out further, perhaps rightly afraid of what she was capable of. Voice soft, she muttered, “FRIDAY said you were coming.”

“She explained what was happening? Why you’re a kid?” Wanda nodded. “That’s good. I’m just going round checking in on everyone. How are you doing, sweetheart?”

“I can’t get my hair to stay up.”

“Lemme help you, then." 

He sat cross legged behind her, drawing his fingers through her dark hair. Careful not to pull too hard on the knots, Clint began to work her hair into a plait. His fingers worked without conscious thought, having spent far too many evenings learning how to do this for Laila for it not to be second nature by now. 

Clint tied the band around the bottom of the plait and leant back, admiring his handiwork. Perfectly straight and tight enough that nothing short of a hurricane was going to pull it out of place. Not even Laila would be able to fault this masterpiece. "All done. You look beau- What’s wrong?”

It was difficult to say what he had noticed first. Between the distinct stiffness in her shoulders and the tremble of her fingers, glowing slightly at the tips, against her knee, it was clear that something had upset Wanda but Clint had no idea what he’d done to make her sad. 

Gently, slowly so not to spook her, Clint placed his fingers on her shoulders and waited patiently for Wanda to turn and face him. He was met with puffy eyes, tears threatening to spill over, and pink cheeks. Wanda had bitten so hard into her bottom lip that she’d split the delicate skin in an unnecessary attempt to hide her tears. 

“Are you scared? I know this is weird but we’ll get you back to normal soon enough. No-one will hurt you. I won’t let them.” Wanda shook her head so Clint tried again. “Did something - did I - do something to upset you? Or do you just need a hug? You can tell me, sweetheart.”

“Pietro used to do my hair for me. He’s gone now.”

“Oh. Come here.” Clint pulled Wanda into a tight hug, rubbing circles on her back as she hiccuped, fighting back tears. His heart broke as he rocked her gently. He didn’t particularly like his brother but if Barney ever died it would hit Clint hard. Wanda had loved Pietro more than anyone else in the world and he could only imagine the pain of losing someone so special. 

Pressing a kiss into her hair, vaguely wondering when she’d stolen Natasha’s shampoo, Clint leant back and said softly, “Pietro wouldn’t want you to be sad, would he? He’d want you to be happy. So, what can I do to make you happy?”

Wanda wiped her eyes, a tight but genuine smile on her lips. Clint wished he could be of more comfort to her, however there were no words that would heal this specific pain. Ultron had taken Pietro from her and she would never fully move on from that loss but Clint would try his hardest to help Wanda remember that she was loved here and that Pietro’s love for her, for humanity, was what had saved them all. 

Clint urged her for an answer, aware than any time a child spent this long on an answer that it was going to be complicated, dangerous or outright impossible. She pursed her lips indignantly and thought harder before answering, “Coffee.”

“Nope.” Shaking his head, he reiterated, “No way. I got in trouble last time I let a nine year old drink coffee. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we find Vision and you can help him bake some cookies.”

Almost as if summoned by his name, Vision floated through the wall mere moments later. Thankfully, he was the same as ever but then he had been 'born’ as an adult (or whatever a fully functioning, artificial intelligence in a super advanced hybrid body was called). “Good morning, Wanda. Barton”

“Hi, Vis.” Wanda’s cheeks turned a gentle pink as Vision offered her a hand to her feet. Neither said anything when, instead of releasing his hand, she tangled their fingers together and began happily swinging her arm. “Do you wanna make cookies with me?”

“Yes, I would like that very much." 

The pair walked towards the door but paused at the threshold. Vision took the moment to assure Clint that he would keep Wanda safe where the young girl rolled her eyes at the insinuation she was incapable. That wasn’t what had stopped her, though. She rubbed her temple, a frown spreading across her face. "Someone is sad. Scared. I can feel it. I don’t like it.”

“Who’s scared, Wanda?” Clint asked, protective instincts rearing their head. With the team as children, they could hardly defend themselves. If someone was scared, they could well be in serious danger and it was up to him to save them. 

She closed her eyes from a moment, extending her senses and harnessing powers which her young mind could barely understand, before opening them with a start. Wanda’s fingers tightened around Vision’s, her voice wobbling as she said, “Steve. He’s having a nightmare. It’s bad. You’ll help him?”

“I’ll help him,” Clint promised, already half way down the corridor as he raced up another level to find the Captain.


	4. Chapter 4

“Watch out! Redwing, no!”

“Redwing, yes!" 

The drone swooped down the hallway and silently homed in on Clint. If he hadn’t heard the warning shouts around the corner, he would never have known it was coming. The targeting scanners focused on Clint to assess his threat level then the cannons extended from the wings, tips glowing red as the power charged up for a shot.

"Wilson! Call your bloody bird off right now!” Clint yelled. He dove aside but, too slow, the all too familiar smell of singed fabric burnt his nostrils. Sam was going to pay for this. Clint had no qualms throwing down with a thirteen year old, not when he was responsible for destroying his favourite shirt. (Yes, it was already falling apart at the seams but still.)

Enraged, he leapt up and caught the drone in his bare hands. Redwing tried to shake him off, reversing flight and bashing him against the wall, however Clint found the kill switch before the metal beast managed to knock him out. They hit the ground with a crash and Clint narrowly managed to avoid impaling himself of Redwing’s sharp wingtip. 

“Redwing! No!” Sam appeared from around the corner, horrified to see his precious drone crushed beneath Clint’s weight. He grabbed Clint by the arm and pulled him off the metal wreck, surprisingly strong for a skinny teenager, face falling as he surveyed the true extent of the damage.“You killed him!”

“He attacked me!” Clint screeched back. “Your stupid bird has always had it in for me!”

If not for Bucky’s sudden appearance, Sam would have launched himself at Clint and likely sent them both flying out the window. Thankfully, Bucky skidded around the corner at just the right moment and restrained his friend, an unimpressed eyeroll hidden beneath a mop of dark hair. “You two are idiots.”

Clint backed away from the pair, putting much needed distance between them and also the metal murder raven that was sparking by his feet. “We’ve been told." 

Convinced his friends weren’t going to kill each other, Bucky released Sam from his grip. As the younger boy brushed himself off and straightened his shirt, Clint got his first real look at Bucky. He had also been affected by the temporal shockwave. He was perhaps sixteen or seventeen; it was hard to tell. He was as tall as Clint and easily as muscled, not to bodybuilder or, you know, scary super-soldier trained assassin standards but what you might have expected from a young man who worked in a hard, physical sort of job. 

However, despite his de-aging, Bucky still had his vibranium arm. Apparently it was too much to ask for an accidental, unstable time anomaly to reject the metal prosthetic and grow an entirely new arm while he was sleeping. 

Feeling Clint’s attention on the appendage, Bucky folded his arms over his chest and asked, "What’s happening?”

“Tony and Bruce -”

“That explains everything then,” Bucky scoffed. “Did it affect everyone?”

Clint nodded. “Pretty much. Just be grateful you didn’t get turned back into a five year old. God, I hope Stark and Rhodes aren’t building ramps and using Cap’s shield as a sled. Oh, shit!”

Steve! Clint had almost forgotten the entire reason for his initial haste, before that damned drone had knocked him off course. Without another word, he raced off down the corridor to Steve’s room, vaguely aware of Sam and Bucky as their heavy steps sounded behind him. They must have worked out where he was heading as their speed increased, worry for their friend pushing them all on. 

He knocked on the door, waited a grand total of two seconds then kicked the thing off its hinges. Or, rather, tried. As it so happened, the Compound doors, especially those for the Avengers’ personal rooms, were designed to withstand an awful lot more force than one exhausted archer with slightly dodgy knees could easily produce. 

Utilising language that would make even a sailor blush (naturally, he blamed Natasha; she was and had always been a terrible influence on him) Clint hopped away from the door, cradling his throbbing leg. He didn’t even need to look at the younger boys to know they were smirking at his pain. 

“I could’ve opened that for you, Agent,” FRIDAY pointed out but Clint merely waved her ‘helpful’ comment away. 

“Shut up,” Clint grumbled, unaware of who the comment was actually aimed at. “You try opening the goddamn thing, then.”

Bucky stepped up and, instead of punching his way in as Clint had expected, typed in a six digit code which unlocked the door instantly. Sounding all too wise for a teenager, reminding Clint once again that the team weren’t the children they appeared to be, Bucky said, “Not everything needs a heavy hand, you know.”

Clint stepping inside and crossed the dark room. He sat on the edge of the bed, far enough from Steve so not to make him jump. The Captain, eighteen at most, not quite as pale or skinny as the archive records showed (something to do with the serum being less affected by the time-wave, Clint suspected), was staring far off into the distance, not even aware that he had company. Clint could only imagine what was going through his head. 

They all had nightmares. They’d seen the worst of humanity and faced unequivocal loss but had had time and, more importantly, professional help to develop strategies to cope with the pain. Or at least to recognise it and manage the effects on their daily lives. However Steve, this Steve, had none of those coping mechanisms. 

All the memories - the terrors of a world war, of an alien invasion and multiple near death experiences - were traumatic enough to break a grown man. His friends and family were practically all dead, and he had watched so many of them die. His beliefs had been tested over and over, twisted and torn to shreds as the pillars of everything he held dear crumbled to ash. It was no wonder the young Steve had shut down in the face of so much disillusion and heartbreak. 

“Cap?” Clint asked gently. Anyone in this sort of state had to be delicate and the last thing he wanted was to cause even more damage. “Steve? You alright?”

Bucky and Sam, on the other hand, had other ideas. Sam jumped up onto the opposite side of the mattress, the sudden bounce shocking Steve out of his mind. He instantly went on the offensive, lunging at his friend but Bucky was prepared. He caught Steve in his arms and held him back, muttering quiet words in the blond’s ear. 

His limbs continued to thrash for another few seconds before Bucky’s voice brought Steve out of his waking nightmare. He looked up at his friend with wide eyes before he buried his face in the younger’s shoulder, body heavy as he caught his breath and swallowed his tears. Bucky rubbed his back in comforting circles and laid them down. Sam immediately lay down beside them, encasing Steve between their bodies. 

“We’ve got this, Barton,” Bucky said, offering a gentle smile as he held his friend tighter. 

Clint excused himself from the intimate cuddle pile and pulled the door shut behind him. Staring up at the ceiling, not entirely convinced that FRIDAY would answer him, he asked, “Is that everyone? Thor is still off world so that’s it, right? All the kids are safe now?”

“All but one, Agent. Scott Lang was in the lab when the explosion occurred. His signatures are still showing positive but I can’t locate him. My scanners were damaged after the explosion. However records show there were an elevated level of Pimm Particles just before the event.”

“You’re telling me that Scott’s a baby? And he’s running around the compound in his suit? Ant sized? How do I find him before someone accidentally stands on the poor sod? Oh, god. What if one of Sam’s birds thinks he is a real ant and eats him?”

“I think that the boss has a magnifying glass somewhere.”

“You’re kidding, right?” FRIDAY’s silence spoke volumes. With a sigh so deep that he felt it right in his soul, Clint set off back towards the lab, realising far too late that he should have just stayed in bed this morning.


End file.
